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The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 written by Charles Lamb

C >> Charles Lamb >> The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4




"Is it no blessing that we two love one another so dearly--that Allan
is left me--that you are settled in life--that worldly affairs go
smooth with us both--above all that our lot hath fallen to us in a
Christian country? Maria! these things are not little. I will
consider life as a long feast, and not forget to say grace."


FROM ANOTHER LETTER.

"----Allan has written to me--you know, he is on a visit at his old
tutor's in Gloucestershire--he is to return home on Thursday--Allan
is a dear boy--he concludes his letter, which is very affectionate
throughout, in this manner--

"'Elinor, I charge you to learn the following stanza by heart--

"'The monarch may forget his crown,
That on his head an hour hath been;
The bridegroom may forget his bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen;

"'The mother may forget her child,
That smiles so sweetly on her knee:
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And all that thou hast done for me."

"'The lines are in Burns--you know, we read him for the first time
together at Margate--and I have been used to refer them to you, and
to call you, in my mind, _Glencairn_,--for you were always very good
to me. I had a thousand failings, but you would love me in spite of
them all. I am going to drink your health.'"

I shall detain my reader no longer from the narrative.


* * * * *


CHAPTER VIII.


They had but four rooms in the cottage. Margaret slept in the biggest
room up-stairs, and her grand-daughter in a kind of closet adjoining,
where she could be within hearing, if her grandmother should call her
in the night.

The girl was often disturbed in that manner--two or three times in a
night she has been forced to leave her bed, to fetch her
grandmother's cordials, or do some little service for her--but she
knew that Margaret's ailings were _real_ and pressing, and Rosamund
never complained--never suspected, that her grandmother's
requisitions had anything unreasonable in them.

The night she parted with Miss Clare, she had helped Margaret to bed,
as usual--and, after saying her prayers, as the custom was, kneeling
by the old lady's bedside, kissed her grandmother, and wished her a
good-night--Margaret blessed her, and charged her to go to bed
directly. It was her customary injunction, and Rosamund had never
dreamed of disobeying.

So she retired to her little room. The night was warm and clear--the
moon very bright--her window commanded a view of _scenes_ she had
been tracing in the daytime with Miss Clare.

All the events of the day past, the occurrences of their walk arose
in her mind. She fancied she should like to retrace those scenes--but
it was now nine o'clock, a late hour in the village.

Still she fancied it would be very charming--and then her
grandmother's injunction came powerfully to her recollection--she
sighed, and turned from the window-and walked up and down her little
room.

Ever, when she looked at the window, the wish returned. It was not so
_very late_. The neighbors were yet about, passing under the window
to their homes--she thought, and thought again, till her sensations
became vivid, even to painfulness--her bosom was aching to give them
vent.

The village-clock struck ten!--the neighbors ceased to pass under the
window. Rosamund, stealing downstairs, fastened the latch behind her,
and left the cottage.

One, that knew her, met her, and observed her with some surprise.
Another recollects having wished her a good-night. Rosamund never
returned to the cottage.

An old man, that lay sick in a small house adjoining to Margaret's,
testified the next morning, that he had plainly heard the old
creature calling for her granddaughter. All the night long she made
her moan, and ceased not to call upon the name of Rosamund. But no
Rosamund was there--the voice died away, but not till near daybreak.

When the neighbors came to search in the morning, Margaret was
missing! She had _straggled_ out of bed, and made her way into
Rosamund's room--worn out with fatigue and fright, when she found the
girl not there, she had laid herself down to die--and, it is thought,
she died _praying_--for she was discovered in a kneeling posture, her
arms and face extended on the pillow, where Rosamund had slept the
night before--a smile was on her face in death.


* * * * *


CHAPTER IX.


Fain would I draw a veil over the transactions of that night--but I
cannot--grief, and burning shame, forbid me to be silent--black deeds
are about to be made public, which reflect a stain upon our common
nature.

Rosamund, enthusiastic and improvident, wandered unprotected to a
distance from her guardian doors--through lonely glens, and
wood-walks, where she had rambled many a _day_ in safety--till she
arrived at a shady copse, out of the hearing of any human habitation.

_Matravis_ met her.---"Flown with insolence and wine," returning home
late at night, he passed that way!

Matravis was a very ugly man. Sallow-complexioned! and if hearts can
wear that color, his heart was sallow-complexioned also.

A young man with _gray_ deliberation! cold and systematic in all his
plans; and all his plans were evil. His very lust was systematic.

He would brood over his bad purposes for such a dreary length of time
that, it might have been expected, some solitary check of conscience
must have intervened to save him from commission. But that _Light
from Heaven_ was extinct in his dark bosom.

Nothing that is great, nothing that is amiable, existed for this
unhappy man. He feared, he envied, he suspected; but he never loved.
The sublime and beautiful in nature, the excellent and becoming in
morals, were things placed beyond the capacity of his sensations. He
loved not poetry--nor ever took a lonely walk to meditate--never
beheld virtue, which he did not try to disbelieve, or female beauty
and innocence, which he did not lust to contaminate.

A sneer was perpetually upon his face, and malice _grinning_ at his
heart. He would say the most ill-natured things, with the least
remorse, of any man I ever knew. This gained him the reputation of a
wit--other _traits_ got him the reputation of a villain.

And this man formerly paid his court to Elinor Clare!--with what
success I leave my readers to determine. It was not in Elinor's
nature to despise any living thing--but in the estimation of this
man, to be rejected was to be _despised_--and Matravis _never
forgave_.

He had long turned his eyes upon Rosamund Gray. To steal from the
bosom of her friends the jewel they prized so much, the little ewe
lamb they held so dear, was a scheme of delicate revenge, and
Matravis had a twofold motive for accomplishing this young maid's
ruin.

Often had he met her in her favorite solitudes, but found her ever
cold and inaccessible. Of late the girl had avoided straying far from
her own home, in the fear of meeting him--but she had never told her
fears to Allan.

Matravis had, till now, been content to be a villain within the
limits of the law--but, on the present occasion, hot fumes of wine,
cooperating with his deep desire of revenge, and the insolence of an
unhoped-for meeting, overcame his customary prudence, and Matravis
rose, at once, to an audacity of glorious mischief.

Late at night he met her, a lonely, unprotected virgin--no friend at
hand--no place near of refuge.

Rosamund Gray, my soul is exceeding sorrowful for thee--I loathe to
tell the hateful circumstances of thy wrongs. Night and silence were
the only witnesses of this young maid's disgrace--Matravis fled.

Rosamund, polluted and disgraced, wandered, an abandoned thing, about
the fields and meadows till daybreak. Not caring to return to the
cottage, she sat herself down before the gate of Miss Clare's
house--in a stupor of grief.

Elinor was just rising, and had opened the windows of her chamber,
when she perceived her desolate young friend. She ran to embrace
her--she brought her into the house--she took her to her bosom--she
kissed her--she spake to her; but Rosamund could not speak.

Tidings came from the cottage. Margaret's death was an event which
could not be kept concealed from Rosamund. When the sweet maid heard
of it, she languished, and fell sick--she never held up her head
after that time.

If Rosamund had been a _sister_, she could not have been kindlier
treated than by her two friends.

Allan had prospects in life--might, in time, have married into any of
the first families in Hertfordshire--but Rosamund Gray, humbled
though she was, and put to shame, had yet a charm for _him_--and he
would have been content to share his fortunes with her yet, if
Rosamund would have lived to be his companion.

But this was not to be--and the girl soon after died. She expired in
the arms of Elinor--quiet, gentle, as she lived--thankful that she
died not among strangers--and expressing, by signs rather than words,
a gratitude for the most trifling services, the common offices of
humanity. She died uncomplaining; and this young maid, this untaught
Rosamund, might have given a lesson to the grave philosopher in
death.


* * * * *


CHAPTER X.


I was but a boy when these events took place. All the village
remember the story, and tell of Rosamund Gray, and old blind
Margaret.

I parted from Allan Clare on that disastrous night, and set out for
Edinburgh the next morning, before the facts were commonly known--I
heard not of them--and it was four months before I received a letter
from Allan.

"His heart," he told me, "was gone from him--for his sister had died
of a frenzy fever!"--not a word of Rosamund in the letter--I was left
to collect her story from sources which may one day be explained.

I soon after quitted Scotland, on the death of my father, and
returned to my native village. Allan had left the place, and I could
gain no information, whether he were dead or living.

I passed the _cottage_. I did not dare to look that way, or to
inquire _who_ lived there. A little dog, that had been Rosamund's,
was yelping in my path. I laughed aloud like one mad, whose mind had
suddenly gone from him--I stared vacantly around me, like one
alienated from common perceptions.

But I was young at that time, and the impression became gradually
weakened as I mingled in the business of life. It is now _ten years_
since these events took place, and I sometimes think of them as
unreal. Allan Clare was a dear friend to me--but there are times when
Allan and his sister, Margaret and her grand-daughter, appear like
personages of a dream--an idle dream.


* * * * *


CHAPTER XI.


Strange things have happened unto me--I seem scarce awake--but I will
recollect my thoughts, and try to give an account of what has
befallen me in the few last weeks.

Since my father's death our family have resided in London. I am in
practice as a surgeon there. My mother died two years after we left
Widford.

A month or two ago, I had been busying myself in drawing up the above
narrative, intending to make it public. The employment had forced my
mind to dwell upon _facts_, which had begun to fade from it--the
memory of old times became vivid, and more vivid--I felt a strong
desire to revisit the scenes of my native village--of the young loves
of Rosamund and her Clare.

A kind of dread had hitherto kept me back; but I was restless now,
till I had accomplished my wish. I set out one morning to walk--I
reached Widford about eleven in the forenoon--after a slight
breakfast at my inn--where I was mortified to perceive the old
landlord did not know me again--(old Thomas Billet--he has often made
angle-rods for me when a child)--I rambled over all my accustomed
haunts.

Our old house was vacant, and to be sold. I entered, unmolested, into
the room that had been my bedchamber. I kneeled down on the spot
where my little bed had stood--I felt like a child--I prayed like
one--it seemed as though old times were to return again--I looked
round involuntarily, expecting to see some face I knew--but all was
naked and mute. The bed was gone. My little pane of painted window,
through which I loved to look at the sun when I awoke in a fine
summer's morning, was taken out, and had been replaced by one of
common glass.

I visited, by turns, every chamber--they were all desolate and
unfurnished, one excepted, in which the owner had left a harpsichord,
probably to be sold--I touched the keys--I played some old Scottish
tunes, which had delighted me when a child. Past associations revived
with the music--blended with a sense of _unreality_, which at last
became too powerful--I rushed out of the room to give vent to my
feelings.

I wandered, scarce knowing where, into an old wood, that stands at
the back of the house--we called it the _Wilderness_. A well-known
_form_ was missing, that used to meet me in this place--it was
thine--Ben Moxam--the kindest, gentlest, politest of human beings,
yet was he nothing higher than a gardener in the family. Honest
creature! thou didst never pass me in my childish rambles, without a
soft speech, and a smile. I remember thy good-natured face. But there
is one thing, for which I can never forgive thee, Ben Moxam--that
thou didst join with an old maiden aunt of mine in a cruel plot, to
lop away the hanging branches of the old fir-trees--I remember them
sweeping to the ground.

I have often left my childish sports to ramble in this place--its
glooms and its solitude had a mysterious charm for my young mind,
nurturing within me that love of quietness and lonely thinking, which
has accompanied me to maturer years.

In this _Wilderness_ I found myself, after a ten years' absence. Its
stately fir-trees were yet standing, with all their luxuriant company
of underwood--the squirrel was there, and the melancholy cooings of
the wood-pigeon--all was as I had left it--my heart softened at the
sight--it seemed as though my character had been suffering a _change_
since I forsook these shades.

My parents were both dead--I had no counsellor left, no experience of
age to direct me, no sweet voice of reproof. The Lord had taken away
my _friends_, and I knew not where he had laid them. I paced round
the wilderness, seeking a comforter. I prayed that I might be
restored to that _state of innocence_, in which I had wandered in
those shades.

Methought my request was heard, for it seemed as though the stains of
manhood were passing from me, and I were relapsing into the purity
and simplicity of childhood. I was content to have been moulded into
a perfect child. I stood still, as in a trance. I dreamed that I was
enjoying a personal intercourse with my heavenly Father--and,
extravagantly, put off the shoes from my feet--for the place where I
stood I thought, was holy ground.

This state of mind could not last long, and I returned with languid
feelings to my inn. I ordered my dinner--green peas and a
sweetbread--it had been a favorite dish with me in my childhood--I
was allowed to have it on my birthdays. I was impatient to see it
come upon table--but, when it came, I could scarce eat a mouthful--my
tears choked me. I called for wine--I drank a pint and a half of red
wine--and not till then had I dared to visit the church-yard, where
my parents were interred.

The _cottage_ lay in my way--Margaret had chosen it for that very
reason, to be near the church--for the old lady was regular in her
attendance on public worship--I passed on--and in a moment found
myself among the tombs.

I had been present at my father's burial, and knew the spot again--my
mother's funeral I was prevented by illness from attending--a plain
stone was placed over the grave, with their initials carved upon
it--for they both occupied one grave.

I prostrated myself before the spot--I kissed the earth that covered
them--I contemplated, with gloomy delight, the time when I should
mingle my dust with theirs--and kneeled, with my arms incumbent on
the gravestone, in a kind of mental prayer--for I could not speak.

Having performed these duties, I arose with quieter feelings, and
felt leisure to attend to indifferent objects.--Still I continued in
the church-yard, reading the various inscriptions, and moralizing on
them with that kind of levity, which will not unfrequently spring up
in the mind, in the midst of deep melancholy.

I read of nothing but careful parents, loving husbands, and dutiful
children. I said jestingly, where be all the _bad_ people buried? Bad
parents, bad husbands, bad children--what cemeteries are appointed
for these?--do they not sleep in consecrated ground? or is it but a
pious fiction, a generous oversight, in the survivors, which thus
tricks out men's epitaphs when dead, who, in their lifetime,
discharged the offices of life, perhaps, but lamely? Their failings,
with their reproaches, now sleep with them in the grave. _Man wars
not with the dead._ It is a _trait_ of human nature, for which I love
it.

I had not observed, till now, a little group assembled at the other
end of the church-yard; it was a company of children, who were
gathered round a young man, dressed in black, sitting on a
gravestone.

He seemed to be asking them questions--probably, about their
learning--and one little dirty ragged-headed fellow was clambering up
his knees to kiss him. The children had been eating black
cherries--for some of the stones were scattered about, and their
mouths were smeared with them.

As I drew near them, I thought I discerned in the stranger a mild
benignity of countenance, which I had somewhere seen before--I gazed
at him more attentively.

It was Allan Clare! sitting on the grave of his sister.

I threw my arms about his neck. I exclaimed "Allan"--he turned his
eyes upon me--he knew me--we both wept aloud--it seemed as though the
interval since we parted had been as nothing--I cried out, "Come, and
tell me about these things."

I drew him away from his little friends--he parted with a show of
reluctance from the church-yard--Margaret and her grand-daughter lay
buried there, as well as his sister--I took him to my inn--secured a
room, where we might be private--ordered fresh wine--scarce knowing
what I did, I danced for joy.

Allan was quite overcome, and taking me by the hand, he said, "This
repays me for all."

It was a proud day for me--I had found the friend I thought
dead--earth seemed to me no longer valuable, than as it contained
_him_; and existence a blessing no longer than while I should live to
be his comforter.

I began, at leisure, to survey him with more attention. Time and
grief had left few traces of that fine _enthusiasm_, which once
burned in his countenance--his eyes had lost their original fire, but
they retained an uncommon sweetness, and whenever they were turned
upon me, their smile pierced to my heart.

"Allan, I fear you have been a sufferer?" He replied not, and I could
not press him further. I could not call the dead to life again.

So we drank and told old stories--and repeated old poetry--and sang
old songs--as if nothing had happened. We sate till very late. I
forgot that I had purposed returning to town that evening--to Allan
all places were alike--I grew noisy, he grew cheerful--Allan's old
manners, old enthusiasm, were returning upon him--we laughed, we
wept, we mingled our tears, and talked extravagantly.

Allan was my chamber-fellow that night--and lay awake planning
schemes of living together under the same roof, entering upon similar
pursuits,--and praising GOD, that we had met.

I was obliged to return to town the next morning, and Allan proposed
to accompany me. "Since the death of his sister," he told me, "he had
been a wanderer."

In the course of our walk he unbosomed himself without reserve--told
me many particulars of his way of life for the last nine or ten
years, which I do not feel myself at liberty to divulge.

Once, on my attempting to cheer him, when I perceived him over
thoughtful, he replied to me in these words:

"Do not regard me as unhappy when you catch me in these moods. I am
never more happy than at times when, by the cast of my countenance,
men judge me most miserable.

"My friend, the events which have left this sadness behind them are
of no recent date. The melancholy which comes over me with the
recollection of them is not hurtful, but only tends to soften and
tranquillize my mind, to detach me from the restlessness of human
pursuits.

"The stronger I feel this detachment, the more I find myself drawn
heavenward to the contemplation of spiritual objects.

"I love to keep old friendships alive and warm within me, because I
expect a renewal of them in the _World of Spirits_.

"I am a wandering and unconnected thing on the earth. I have made no
new friendships, that can compensate me for the loss of the old--and
the more I know mankind, the more does it become necessary for me to
supply their loss by little images, recollections, and circumstances
of past pleasures.

"I am sensible that I am surrounded by a multitude of very worthy
people, plain-hearted souls, sincere and kind. But they have hitherto
eluded my pursuit, and will continue to bless the little circle of
their families and friends, while I must remain a stranger to them.

"Kept at a distance by mankind, I have not ceased to love them--and
could I find the cruel persecutor, the malignant instrument of GOD'S
judgments on me and mine, I think I would forgive, and try to love
him too.

"I have been a quiet sufferer. From the beginning of my calamities it
was given to me, not to see the hand of man in them. I perceived a
mighty arm, which none but myself could see, extended over me. I gave
my heart to the Purifier, and my will to the Sovereign Will of the
Universe. The irresistible wheels of destiny passed on in their
everlasting rotation,--and I suffered myself to be carried along
with them without complaining."


* * * * *


CHAPTER XII.

Allan told me that for some years past, feeling himself disengaged
from every personal tie, but not alienated from human sympathies, it
had been his taste, his _humor_ he called it, to spend a great
portion of his time in _hospitals_ and _lazar-houses_.

He had found a _wayward pleasure_, he refused to name it a virtue, in
tending a description of people, who had long ceased to expect
kindness or friendliness from mankind, but were content to accept the
reluctant services, which the oftentimes unfeeling instruments and
servants of these well-meant institutions deal out to the poor sick
people under their care.

It is not medicine, it is not broths and coarse meats, served up at a
stated hour with all the hard formalities of a prison--it is not the
scanty dole of a bed to die on--which dying man requires from his
species.

Looks, attentions, consolations,--in a word, _sympathies_, are what a
man most needs in this awful close of mortal sufferings. A kind look,
a smile, a drop of cold water to the parched lip--for these things a
man shall bless you in death.

And these better things than cordials did Allan love to
administer--to stay by a bedside the whole day, when something
disgusting in a patient's distemper has kept the very nurses at a
distance--to sit by, while the poor wretch got a little sleep--and be
there to smile upon him when he awoke--to slip a guinea, now and
then, into the hands of a nurse or attendant--these things have been
to Allan as _privileges_, for which he was content to live; choice
marks, and circumstances, of his Maker's goodness to him.

And I do not know whether occupations of this kind be not a spring of
purer and nobler delight (certainly instances of a more disinterested
virtue) than arises from what are called Friendships of Sentiment.

Between two persons of liberal education, like opinions, and common
feelings, oftentimes subsists a Variety of Sentiment, which disposes
each to look upon the other as the only being in the universe worthy
of friendship, or capable of understanding it,--themselves they
consider as the solitary receptacles of all that is delicate in
feeling, or stable in attachment: when the odds are, that under every
green hill, and in every crowded street, people of equal worth are to
be found, who do more good in their generation, and make less noise
in the doing of it.

It was in consequence of these benevolent propensities, I have been
describing, that Allan oftentimes discovered considerable
inclinations in favor of my way of life, which I have before
mentioned as being that of a surgeon. He would frequently attend me
on my visits to patients; and I began to think that he had serious
intentions of making my profession his study.

He was present with me at a scene--a, _death-bed scene_--I shudder
when I do but think of it.


* * * * *


CHAPTER XIII.


I was sent for the other morning to the assistance of a gentleman,
who had been wounded in a duel,--and his wounds by unskilful
treatment had been brought to a dangerous crisis.

The uncommonness of the name, which was _Matravis_, suggested to me,
that this might possibly be no other than Allan's old enemy. Under
this apprehension, I did what I could to dissuade Allan from
accompanying me--but he seemed bent upon going, and even pleased
himself with the notion, that it might lie within his ability to do
the unhappy man some service. So he went with me.